Police are searching for clues in truck driver's head injury

Victim found bleeding with his wallet missing.

Victim found bleeding with his wallet missing.

December 19, 2006|ALICIA GALLEGOS Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- It's a mystery police are still working to figure out and one man's family is hoping will soon be solved. A 65-year-old trucker was found in an empty hardware shed, barely conscious and bleeding from the head, his wallet missing. That's part of the puzzle that began Sunday at Walnut Street Hardwoods, 1011 S. Walnut St., when an employee discovered Reaburn Butrick. Butrick's brother-in-law, Dennis Salloway, had called the supervisor at the sawmill about 7 p.m. when he couldn't get in touch with Butrick by cell phone. The Cassopolis man was delivering a load of logs to the business and reportedly was transferring the materials from his truck with a CAT loader. Supervisor Fernando Delgado took Salloway's call and went to look for Butrick, finding his orange semi-truck still running, but no driver. Then he looked in a nearby woodshed. "I found him standing by (a pile of boards), bleeding," Delgado remembered Monday. "I asked him what happened, but there was no answer. "I called 911." The CAT loader was also in the shed, Delgado said, and spots of blood led to where Butrick stood. Delgado helped the man sit down on a large spool of wire and saw that he had an 8- to 10-inch laceration on the side of his head. He was mumbling, but not making any sense, Delgado said. When paramedics arrived, Butrick was semiconscious, but in critical condition once he entered at the hospital, according to police reports. "He's in pretty bad shape," Delgado said. Officers checked for identification on Butrick, but found neither an ID card nor a wallet, which family members say is alarming. "He has (his wallet) at all times," Salloway said. Police are now investigating whether Butrick was attacked and robbed, or whether the man simply fell from the loader. Salloway is skeptical about his brother-in-law merely falling, adding that the 65-year-old was in good health and had worked with trucks for years. He was helping out with his brother-in-law's business for the weekend, Salloway said, but works at a separate trucking company in Niles. "I think he was helped out of the loader," Salloway said. Butrick underwent emergency surgery Sunday after suffering a concussion, skull fractures and bleeding in the brain, according to Salloway. Doctors told family members that in the next 24 to 48 hours they would be able to tell how severe the injuries were and if Butrick will be brain damaged. Butrick's three children and wife were at the hospital Monday, waiting for word, Salloway said. One possible scenario is that the driver fell from the highly set loader because of the darkness. Delgado re-enacted how a worker typically climbs backward from a set of steps on the vehicle and said it would have been hard to see at that time of night. But he wondered then why the injury was to the side of Butrick's head, instead of the back. Delgado was still shaken up on Monday and said nothing like Sunday's incident had happened at the business before. Police chalk marks remained in the woodshed, outlining blood from the accident.